034 Building better relationships with brands (with Sara Robles)

SHOW NOTES: www.travelfreedompodcast.com/034

Methods to figure out what to charge and how to nurture long term relationships with brands. PR expert Sara Robles discusses how to value yourself and how to make companies take notice of you.

How to pitch hotels for free accommodation - the right way.
How to learn what a company needs from you
Why email is not the way to build business relationships and some methods that work much better.
How to gauge when to push a business relationship further
Why you shouldn't be "all business"
Why its all about stalking.
Why interacting in blogger groups can help you find the right businesses too
How many people you should email at any given company
When you should start talking money
The PR Formula for knowing what to charge for your blogging work
Why your value as a blogger goes way beyond providing links at a "cost-per-click" rate
What to do when campaigns go wrong.
How to perpetuate the relationship


 
Sara's advice on knowing how much to charge:
 
The PR formula for the value of editorial it's called AVE (advertising value equivalency). Translated to online, this is what I suggested:
 
Measure the space (column inches) occupied by an article, for podcast and video, of course, you measure time.
Then multiply the column inches (or the podcast duration time) by the ad rate for the exact number of readers (like banners on similar pages).
Add up your costs (if you had any) and add up a 15-30% for credibility/reputation value
 
Important! "The use of this technique can perpetuate two major fallacies: (1) that editorial is "free advertising," and (2) that dollar cost equals dollar value."
 
ALSO use this formula just to have an idea about what's reasonable to charge but always adapt it to your own situation/numbers. I recommend using a mix of formulas depending on the service offered.
 
More about this:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/164816